Furious $teven

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Wednesday night, Izzy & I finally watched “Furious 7” which is the 7^th installment of the Fast & Furious “film” franchise… and at this point in time, the 4^th highest grossing movie OF ALL TIME!!! The soundtrack was #1 in 59 countries… and yes, they mentioned it on the DVD… and yes, I wanted to slit my wrist listening to choice clips from it throughout the movie. I’m assuming that because it IS the 4^th highest grossing movie of all time, that you’ve probably all seen this movie at least once in theatres… or maybe even in the last month since it’s been out on DVD… so there’ll be some spoilers. I’ll tell you what’s not a spoiler though… Paul Walker does die… in the movie anyway. Too soon? No, it’s not. It’s an ironic tragedy. Moving on. Fun game to play though… pretend that you don’t know that Paul Walker’s going to make it in the end because you’ve been awake the past six months or on any form of social media… and watch the movie with every scene as a “Is this where his character gets killed?” mentality… it’s actually pretty intriguing. Is it the scene where he’s getting dropped out of a f**king airplane in a car? Is it when his buddy Dom (Vin Diesel) is holding up a sports car by himself like a man-jack stand for a few minutes while he tries to delicately remove a microchip that has been inexplicably placed under it? Is it during one of the many shoot-out scenes with apparent armies of international criminals and/or cyborgs? All I’m saying is… that if ANYBODY died in these movies, there was ample opportunity for that to happen… unless it’s all the odd homoerotic dreams of various fanboys… which it absolutely is. This movie is people (directors, producers, actors, etc) playing with action figures. Pure & simple. That being said… it can totally be fun. Is it the 4^th highest grossing movie of all time fun? Of course not… but yeah, adjust for inflation or something and it’s still worthy of making some cash on the side. I ain’t gonna hate… it’s not like “Pitch Perfect 2” grossing more than “Mad Max: Fury Road” or something like that. No, I still haven’t forgiven you for that yet, America!

 

Anyway, this 7^th installment picks up where the last one left off… at the end of “Fast 6” the “good guys” brought down Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) and beat his ass good into a coma… well, apparently all that did was piss off his older brother Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) who’s even MORE dangerous (because he’s basically a Terminator apparently) and wants nothing more than to just kill the “good guys” and already killed the Japanese one from the 3^rd installment that nobody watched. Well, to protect his family, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) basically joins forces with a secret ops guy named Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) who may or may not be government sanctioned… and they have to find a McGuffin known as “The God’s Eye” which basically uses all technology in the world to locate somebody anywhere in the world. It’s just that easy. Even easier than… say… standing around and waiting for Deckard Shaw to find them? Not quite… but otherwise there wouldn’t be a movie. Basically from there, it’s just one global jetsetting trip to another to do things like drop vehicles out of airplanes over Azerbaijan, drive from tower to tower in Abu Dhabi, introduce cameos from Ronda Rousey, Tony Jaa, Djimon Hounsou, Iggy Azalea, T-Pain… and let’s face it, Jordana Brewster’s character is basically a cameo in those movie too… and I think Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was on set for MAYBE a week & over half of that was the fight with Deckard Shaw. Anyway… it basically takes all the craziest scenes from every other ridiculous action movie ever made… and puts them all into one… with a lot of gun butter, Vin Diesel mumbles, waify girl asses, ridiculous situations, one liners that don't really say anything… all the stuff that you want in one of these movies. Do I think that anybody associated with this movie will be nominated for an Academy Award? FOH, of course not. Was it fun to watch? Absolutely… and absolutely infuriating when you try to use the laws of physics or rationality… but hey, you get what you want from it. I’d say check it out… and there’ll be plenty more of these movies… don’t you worry about that either.

 

Tuesday night, Izzy & I went to Local Brewing near AT&T Park for the SF Homebrewers Guild’s monthly meeting. Local Brewing opened up about four months ago & is already getting a great reputation around the Bay Area as a fantastic brewery. They have a 10bbl system and are very savvy with social media & technology to essentially “give the people what they want”. They started with four beers on tap… and are now up to 16 beers and essentially the beers that make the cut at a particular time are those that patrons want, like & let them know. I mean… it’s a pretty simple idea of giving the people what sells & what they want… but they use the technology to their benefit since things like size & storage of their location are limited. Brewmaster Regan & head brewer Patrick talked about their process & answered questions from the guild… and it was a great experience. Here are some pictures…

 

A HUGE thank you to Regan for letting us host our meeting at her location & for the samples of their wonderful beer. Check them out if you’re in the SOMA area!

 

While this was going on, the softball team was wrapping up our undefeated championship season! I had a migraine starting up, so I didn’t make the games but they pulled out two victories in this doubleheader playoff situation… and we just crushed them! I’m incredibly proud of our team!

 

This past week, Izzy & I also had the opportunity to help out with a brew at Elevation 66 Brewing… and as usual, it was a lot of fun & very interesting… and not a bad way to spend about 8 hours starting at 5 AM. I have to keep thanking Super Dave, Big Ben & Li’l Jon for allowing us to help out and learn the intricacies of big league brewing… and apparently, Li’l Jon may have his own brewery that he’s in charge of soon enough in his hometown… but I’ll obviously share those details as we get a little closer to opening. Hopefully next year.

 

As for our own brewery (Terrible Lizard Brewing located entirely within my home at this time), we also are making an Apple Cider that we may let sit for a while and become an Apfelwein… but that was basically just putting apple juice & some brewing yeast in a carboy…

 

Also, we’re getting a 2^nd five gallon whiskey barrel from Seven Stills Distillery… so we’ve started another Scotch Ale to barrel age for a competition that they’re doing with the San Francisco Homebrewers Guild. Details will be coming soon regarding the release party during SF Beer Week… but in the meantime, we’ve started the base beer Scotch Ale… so that it’s ready for a moment’s notice when we get the barrel. It should be fantastic…

That should do it for this entry… as this weekend will be pretty full with the Bay Area Mashers’ Sacramento Brewery Tour & then the SF Homebrewers Guild taking over the bottle sort for the California State Homebrewing Competition… but more on that later. Until then, have a great weekend everybody!!!